


Death and Pumpkins

by girlguidejones



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2018-04-30 09:19:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5158457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlguidejones/pseuds/girlguidejones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Halloween brings back memories both bitter and sweet for Boyd and Derek.  Stiles, as always, is trying to maneuver outcomes from behind the scenes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death and Pumpkins

**Author's Note:**

  * For [captaintinymite (augopher)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/augopher/gifts).



> For the prompt: non-underage Derek/Stiles, doing something autumn-related. This story takes place on Halloween in the near future, with all of Derek's original pack alive and well.

"Hey." Derek said, settling down to the damp ground beside Boyd with a crunch. The leaves had started the week in piles around the house, raked up for theoretical bagging, which Stiles puts off with ever-more-ridiculous excuses daily. Now they're less like piles and more like…leaf nebulae.

"Hey." 

The thing is, that he and Boyd are solid. Big, scary, and monosyllabic are three words that wouldn't describe anyone else in the pack, but used without any others, could be referring to either of them. They _get_ each other; more than once a silent eyebrow quirk sent from one to the other is all they've needed. And if Derek and Boyd are separated, and you give Derek a set of circumstances, he can predict Boyd's next few moves with an eerie probability.

It's pretty fucked up that their bond extends even unto this: Derek knows exactly what it's like to have a dead sister whose favorite holiday was Halloween.

"So, everyone wants to do the haunted hayride thing later," Derek ventures. As an opening gambit, it's weak, he knows, but it's all he's got. At least he remembered not to phrase it as a yes or no question. Stiles would be proud.

_______

_"Whatever you do, don't ASK him if he wants to go! Don't give an opening for the NO. You mention it, then transition into describing it using inviting terms. Paint a picture, and then you move in for the close. 'You're coming right?'...something like that. Got it?" Derek stares at him._

_"Where do you get this stuff?" he asks, despite himself. "Is this some sort of interrogation technique from your dad?"_

_"Nah, man. I worked a couple summers down at Take-out Taco. Mr. Sanchez is an upselling genius. That man is putting his kids through college on extra sides of sour cream!"_

_______

"What you mean is," Boyd deadpans, bringing Derek back to the present, "that Stiles and Erica want to do it, and everyone else is just going for the all-you-can-eat caramel popcorn and hot cider."

"Well, yeah," Derek dips his head in acknowledgment. 

"Sure you want a bunch of wolves at full moon hopped up on sugar?" Boyd asks, Skeptical Eyebrow on point.

"Cheaper than feeding them here," Derek shrugs with a small smile. 

The moon is already up, pale and ghostly in the waning sunshine. Boyd doesn't answer. Derek reclines completely, settling down into the leafy crumbles with his fingers laced behind his head. He gives it a minute, and soon enough Boyd lies back as well. His arms are still stiff by his sides; he's certainly not the picture of repose but the big ball of one shoulder rubs up against Derek's and Boyd doesn't move away so Derek will take it. Derek breathes in deeply, and speaks.

"Laura l-l-loved Halloween," he says, stuttering on the alliteration, but then his throat clogs up and that's all that will come out. They take two breaths, four heartbeats. Four breaths, eight heartbeats. 

When they get to the thirty-third heartbeat between the two of them Boyd says "Alicia did too."

_______

_Stiles is curled up around him, but he shifts (not subtly, he thinks he is, but he's never been subtle, ever) until Derek's head is snugged up under Stiles' chin, buries his fingers in Derek's hair. Time was when Derek would have bristled, an alpha werewolf tucked close in this protected, delicate posture. He's learned, though. A lot, since those early, packless days, and the somehow bleaker ones soon after, where he wasn't packless but might as well have been._

_"You're his role model, you know," Stiles whispers, lips against the crown of Derek's head. Derek knows better than to scoff; Stiles will only bristle if Derek tries to duck anything positive being said about him. "He looks up to you, sees someone who's had it worse than him and has found a way back."_

_Derek shifts, uneasy in Stiles' conclusion._

_"It doesn't work that way," he whispers in Stiles' collarbone. "It's not a numbers game, not majority rules. Just because I lost more people, it doesn't mean he hurts less." He pauses. "You of all people should know that, Stiles." He feels Stiles inhale sharply. His arms go still and stiff around Derek for a long moment, then suddenly he relaxes, like a puppet with its strings cut. Stiles lets out a shaky breath and murmurs back._

_"You're right, of course."_

_"So are you," Derek replies, because he knows Stiles **is** right. Boyd does model himself after Derek in many ways. None of those are the things Derek wants to be thinking about right now, though._

_Derek shifts, turning his face more fully into Stiles' collarbone, rubbing his nose into Stiles' skin. He tries, wants to be more vocal for Stiles, use his words to tell him what Derek is feeling and wanting. But sometimes instinct is hard to overcome, and there's this, instead, where the wolf takes over and presses himself into Stiles' space in lieu of speech, scent-marking and whining._

_"Hey," Stiles says softly. "Hey, yeah. Yeah, come here…"_

_______

"Everyone did their own pumpkin every year," Derek says, settling more heavily into Boyd's shoulder, feeling Boyd relax more against his in turn. "The little kids start with finger paints on mini-pumpkins."

"That sounds pretty cute," Boyd laughs. "Did the adults help?"

"Not really. Only with the babies. It was a footprint, or a palm print for them, pressed onto the pumpkin, like on a birth certificate, you know? Otherwise they did their own, as much as they could, until they were able to carve them for themselves." 

"How did you know they were ready?" Boyd sounds genuinely curious now, distracted from his own melancholy memories by imagining Hale family Halloweens.

"Whenever they could control their cutting tools," Derek says with a grin, flicking open his claws with a flourish under Boyd's nose, as Boyd snorts in amusement. "Which is usually around the time puberty hits, for born wolves. When Laura was eleven and I was eight, it was about that time it became obvious Laura would be the next alpha—" 

"How did you know?" Boyd interrupts, crumbling a few leaves between his fingers and letting the flakes fly away in the breeze. "The hormones kick in and, bam?"

"The bossiness, mostly," Derek says dryly. "Anyway, she felt like she was ready, even though mom had told her no. She bullied me into secretly helping her, had some crazy idea for a Lion King pumpkin, Mufasa vs. Simba." Derek has to pause, swallowing around a lump in his throat.

"How did it look?" Boyd eventually whispers.

"Well," Derek huffs softly, "let's just say if I was a human taking piano lessons, I would have had to switch to the triangle."

Boyd laughs, a long, loud laugh that makes Derek's Alpha puff and preen inside, thrilled with bringing happiness to his beta. "We should do that, you know?" he says in a few minutes, still wiping tears away.

"Cut off several of my fingers?" Derek says, as Boyd elbows him. 

"No, you know, the carving thing. Make it a contest, crown the Pumpkin King, whatever." Boyd's thinking of now, of course, of this year. But Derek imagines the future, with tiny wolflings who have Stiles' moles and paint-covered toes; a couple of cubs with Erica's eyes and Boyd's wide smile. He stops when he gets to the imaginary toddler with Allison's dimples, because in his mind's eye it has both Scott's complexion and Isaac's curls and that's just too weird.

"Fine, but you have to get the pumpkins," Derek says, like he's grumpy and not secretly elated. This is much better than a hayride with strangers. 

Boyd pretends not to see through the act, and leaps up, leafy and smelling of autumn, before suddenly pouncing on Derek, tackle-hugging him wordlessly then sprinting away to get things in motion.

Derek, on the other hand, stays where he is and fishes his cell phone out of his pocket before burrowing deeper into the crispy foliage. He's an Alpha now, of a real—albeit unusual—pack. He doesn't have to do everything himself anymore. He's got _people_. And if he's going to throw the perfect party on short notice, there's only one call he needs to make. As per usual, that person answers immediately and without needless pleasantries.

"Did you fix Boyd? Because I haven't yet cut the tags off of this ridiculous plaid shirt that Stiles made me buy."

"Gonna need your help with that one, Lydia. Got a pen?" 

"The phone's been recording since you said the word "need", Derek," she sniffs disdainfully. "Go."

______________

There are pumpkins _everywhere_ at the Hale house. Cider simmers in a genuine cast iron kettle out in the yard, the fire well contained and with long switches speared with marshmallows waiting nearby for the right moment.

Stiles complains about the disadvantage he, Allison, and Lydia have due to not having their own claws, until Allison unwinds a roll of terrifying knives with a predatory grin. He sidles closer to Lydia, who simply turns her back and snaps open the lid to a professional pumpkin-carving tool set and gets to work.

Derek grins, and finally takes pity on him.

"C'mon," he says, tugging on Stiles' sleeve. Stiles has picked out the largest pumpkin out of the whole pile Boyd brought back. Of course. "I'll help you."

"Pretty sure that's cheating," Stiles grumps, even as he glances at his pile of sketches.

"Call it even-ing the playing field," Derek says, drawing him close.

"Call it sleeping with the Alpha," Jackson snipes, dodging a half-hearted swipe from Derek.

"Let me help," Derek cajoles. "The hardest part is visualizing everything anyway, right? I'd just be helping you execute it." 

Scott, bless him, is always in Stiles' corner. "He's right," Scott nods eagerly. "The carving isn't really that hard. It's getting the perfect idea." Isaac and he are bent over their own pumpkin, which hasn't yet been touched. There are conflicting lines drawn on it in different colors. Apparently deciding on the one perfect idea has eluded them thus far.

Erica and Boyd have one side of theirs done already—a striking depiction of Groot. Baby-Groot in his flowerpot appears to be underway on the opposite side.

Later as the sun drops and the moon rises they gather around the fire. Stiles' pumpkin—a very detailed rendering of the Death Star—has pride of place in the center of the gathering, with Baby Groot beside it as runner up. Derek resolves to stop dismissing pop culture options next year. His field of sunflowers design didn't even make the top three.

As the night deepens Stiles and Erica are ever more sugared-up on Melissa's caramel corn, while Scott, Allison and Isaac get even more cozy. Lydia is fashionably campfire-gorgeous in green plaid that Derek thinks brings out her eyes. When the moon is high Derek catches Boyd's glance and nods, dips his chin. Boyd stands, and the group falls silent.

"Tonight is the night to honor those no longer with us, to carry them in our hearts," he says, and lets out a long, low howl, shifting and dropping to the ground. As his howl fades, Derek sheds his clothing and shifts completely, letting out a shuddering howl of his own before nosing at Stiles' face and racing for the woods on four legs. As he goes, he hears human howls too…Lydia, Allison, and Stiles calling out for their own dead.

Later, when everyone is back and the moon is only a sliver above the horizon, Derek and Stiles slip away into the woods. He would feel bad about it, but he remembers his mom and dad disappearing for a while on full moons, coming back after a time looking happy and—more connected, somehow. He remembers their contentment settling its way into the pack. 

There's probably something to it, alpha pair bonding and how it strengthens the pack's special brand of magic. Derek supposes if there was anyone left who could teach him about it, they would. For now he and Stiles are making their own way by trial and error (and lots of dusty books) and they seem to be doing okay at it.

"Derek?" Stiles whispers, stilling himself where he's grinding down into Derek. "You with me, man?" Stiles is a little more collected than Derek at the moment, he'd already come once, Derek's long, full-shift tongue deep between Stiles' legs, lapping around Stiles' balls and into his hole until he cried out and broke apart beneath him.

Derek, though, is burning with it. The pull of the moon and the need to fuck, to claim, to solidify the pack and bury himself in his mate is overwhelming.

"Here," he rasps, hands trembling as he reaches up for Stiles. "I'm here."

"Me too," Stiles groans, sinking down onto Derek's cock. "Gonna be honoring the dead myself here in a minute," he gasps, as Derek thrusts up into him. Derek has no idea where he gets this stuff.

"Wh-what the hell…" Derek gasps, rolling Stiles to his back and setting up a rhythm of his own, anchoring himself to the sounds of his cock sliding in and out of Stiles' hole. He's got to get control here somehow.

"La petite mort, Derek. Fuck me 'til I pass out of this conscious world," Stiles commands.

"Never say that again," Derek groans into Stiles' laughing mouth.

As always when in comes to Stiles, Derek still does his best to oblige.


End file.
